The Factor Rundown
Talking Points Memo & Top Story
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Finding common ground with President Obama
"President Obama did a smart thing when he said he wants to work with the Republican Party. My beef is not with Mr. Obama's posture towards the GOP; I think both parties play far too many political games. My concern is the gulf between the president and you, the folks. Three examples: First, the Obama administration has announced it may not try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. There was no reason to run up hundreds of millions of dollars in expense, so why did it take months for the White House to figure this deal out? Second, health care. Americans don't understand the bill, so you would think the President would simplify matters - that he would put in legislation to stop frivolous lawsuits and allow insurance companies to compete nationwide. And third, some right-wingers condemn President Obama for the trillion-dollar stimulus package, but Talking Points thinks that's unfair. However, there is more than $500 billion still left in federal stimulus money. President Obama should put the money back into the treasury - paying down a $13-trillion debt with stimulus money would send a positive message to the world about the U.S. economy. Those three examples are common sense - if the President embraces them, his bond with the folks should grow."
The Factor invited Time columnist Joe Klein to evaluate the Talking Points Memo. "You're pretty much right on the first point," Klein said. "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others are enemy combatants, the kind of people you should keep in prison until hostilities cease. On health care, I agree with you on tort reform, but letting insurance companies compete across state lines is far more complicated because you have different laws in different states. In many cases in this debate, you have Republicans taking positions purely to block the President." The Factor challenged Klein to defend his earlier allegation that "Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap." "I've worked with a lot of Fox News journalists," Klein responded, "and they're good guys. But your pal Glenn Beck is peddling a lot of hateful crap. He's trying to delude the American public." The Factor reminded Klein that Beck is extremely popular among regular folks. "That's the left-wing line, that Beck is a threat to the union. If anybody thinks Glenn Beck is a threat to the union, they're insane! Don't you see the separation between you and the folks? You guys just don't get it!"
FNC analysts Juan Williams and Mary Katharine Ham entered the No Spin Zone and assessed the interview with Joe Klein. "I couldn't believe he once accused people who watch Fox News of being 'seditious,'" Williams said. "That means we want to overthrow the government? It's a basic distrust of people's intelligence - you watch Fox and therefore you can't have independent critical faculty that allows you to make a determination? It's insulting." Ham suggested that a similar condescension also infects the Obama administration. "Here's the similarity between a guy like Klein and the White House. A poll comes out that says 77% of the people believe the stimulus was wasted, he says they're dodos because they don't understand that some of this was tax credits. People are not idiots, they're actually deciding based on facts. The White House has some of the same idea, they say they just haven't explained things well enough."
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Gavin Newsom in the No Spin Zone
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a frequent Factor target, entered the No Spin Zone for the first time. "I watch you every night," Newsom confessed, "which will hurt me with my progressive base. Either you're becoming more moderate or I am, but I'm starting to agree with some of the things you say." Newsom defended his ultra-liberal city, its goals, and its finances. "We are balancing budgets without raising taxes and we have universal health care and universal pre-school. I reject the idea that liberals can't govern - San Francisco is an example that we can, despite all our pratfalls and challenges." But The Factor gave Newsom a frank assessment of the city's decline: "San Francisco used to be my favorite city to visit, but it is no longer because you have panhandlers everywhere. They're aggressive, they go to the bathroom in the street. You have medical marijuana clinics all over the place, you have a libertine philosophy, and it looks like the inmates are controlling the asylum."
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Obama remains on defensive after Mass. vote
FNC media analyst Bernie Goldberg took aim to the right and fired a volley at President Obama's harshest critics. "When George Bush was President," Goldberg said, "people on the hard left wouldn't have given him credit if he found a cure for cancer. And now we see people on the hard right behaving just like the crazies on the hard left, and that really bothers me. They can attack him on the issues all day long, but if you go after him just because he's a liberal Democrat you lose credibility."
Returning for a second segment, Goldberg assailed the New York Times, which put the arrest of conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe on the front page. "I'm not defending O'Keefe," Goldberg began, "and I'm not arguing against the New York Times running five stories about this. This is about media hypocrisy. The Times showed virtually no interest in the ACORN story when you and Fox were running the videos, even though ACORN gets tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers. The worst that James O'Keefe has done is that he's a young guy who pulled a stupid prank, but they're treating this like it's Watergate because he's a conservative. That is how bias works in the 'lamestream' media." The Factor contrasted the coverage of O'Keefe with another story: "No big deal was made out of Jeremiah Wright, who had a major influence on Barack Obama. It was ignored by the New York Times."
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Reality Check: Bold & Fresh Tour in Tampa
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is afforded the right to fly home to San Francisco on a military plane, and she has certainly taken advantage. The Factor's Check: "Over two years, the cost to the taxpayer was more than $2-million to fly back and forth to San Francisco, and about $100,000 more for food and drink on board. Let's party!" Cable news ratings have been released, and The Factor offered this Check about the 8 PM hour: "We are up 20% year-to-year, CNN is down 32% and MSNBC is down 31%. In the key demographic, Fox is up 55%, while MSNBC is down a whopping 47%. That is Armageddon!" The Factor closed Monday's program with some highlights from the weekend's sold-out Bold & Fresh tour shows. The clips included Beck "praising" Obama as "one of the most humble men I've ever seen," and Bill mocking Beck's not-quite-svelte shape.
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Zac Brown Band & Elton John and Lady Gaga?
Monday's Patriots: The Zac Brown Band, which delivered a rousing rendition of "America the Beautiful" at Sunday night's Grammy Awards, and was also named Best New Artist. And the Pinheads?: Possibly Elton John and Lady Gaga, who performed their duet, for unknown reasons, with heavily smudged faces.
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Viewers sound off
Lisa Clark, Munster, IN: "Mr. O'Reilly, I was born on Chicago's South Side. You and Lupe Fiasco are correct up to a point. The area is a problem but the entire South Side is not a train wreck. Parts of the hood are like Haiti, but not all of it."
Shannon Sanders, Clinton, IL: "Mr. O, you are exactly right on comparing the South Side to Haiti. The state keeps pumping millions in there but it seems to be a losing battle."
Sean Kaletta, Warwick, NY: "My family was directly affected by the attack on 9/11 and I do not want the terrorists tried near my home. The risk is too great."
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